Laid off for the first time? The emotional rollercoaster nobody warns you about (and how to survive the ride)
The news lands. Out of nowhere. And it hits like a tonne of bricks.
As a former head-hunter, I heard this story daily: someone gets blindsided by the news that they are no longer required. They’re thrown off-kilter by feelings they never saw coming. They get flung around on an emotional rollercoaster that leaves them bashed, bruised and unsure of the way forward.
Their world rocks partially because few people talk about the complex flurry of emotions that come shortly after the news of a first time exit, redundancy or lay off.
And even fewer people talk about how handle these new emotions - in ways that are helpful.
But here’s the good news: The emotional rollercoaster has predictable phases - not linear steps or stages.
But phases that you can react to personally. Maybe cycle through a couple of times. Or skip one or two depending on your personal circumstances.
When you know these phases, you can ride through them and get moving towards the next stage of your career in better shape, sooner.
First time redundancy is a messy ride of emotions. Forewarned is forearmed.
Share this article with people you care about, who have not experienced a lay off or redundancy experience yet.
The Early Loops
There are four big emotions that settle in early and hang around until they’re processed.
While shock is usually the first they can be played and replayed.
Avoidance of any of them seems to make them last longer or slip out at weird moments so in each short video I offer a tiny action to take to step into the emotional phase and process it in a helpful way.
Let’ run through the 9 different phases of an unexpected layoff or surprise redundancy - so that you are prepared if/when it happens to you.
Shock & The Tonne of Bricks
Big companies go through change processes all the time. Whatever language they us (“re-shaping, down-sizing, redundancies, lay offs, right-sizing”) it means that experienced people leave the company. And even though it’s commonplace now, most people don’t think about it in advance. Most people believe “it’ll not happen to me”.
Ageism the workplace means that this is more likely to happen to experienced (and more often, expensive) members of staff.
Rage & The Betrayal Beast
When the shock fades something feisty takes it’s place. You are right to be angry. There are ways to let it out safely. So that you can move to the next phase.
The Messy Middle
For your company, redundancies and lay offs are numbers decisions. For you it’s personal.
In this phase, anger settles and two big worries arrive: Financial worries and worries about what “they” will think.
This is totally exhausting work for your brain. This tiny action will help you slow down your brain for the next phase.
The Big Daddy Comes Knocking
This one is rarely spoken about but trying to avoid it, means it follows you around waiting to be noticed.
It’ll wait for you to finish that important Neflix series or the lengthy DIY job list.
Here’s a tiny activity that helps you to let it in, acknowledge it and then let it move on through you so that you can get moving into actions.
The Frantic Fog
You’re dying to sovle the problem. To fix it. And even though you know that on-line job-hunting at our age isn’t the best way to go about this, the safest, quickest way to fix this problem.
it is to get a new job. But the lure of on-line job boards feels compelling. As do taking any action. You want control…yesterday.
Here’s the podcast episode I promised:
The Fork In the Road
After the messiness of the earlier phases, this is the moment to answer one clear question. And the answer to this question is ether “yes” or “no”. Nothing else will work. Because both roads require such deep reserves of human energy - doing both at the same time will dilute both.
The Identity Wobble
When you’ve spent years doing your job in a particular industry or company, it can cause you to asked “Who am I without the title?” or “Am I too old to become someone new?”
Nothing disappeared, when your job disappeared. It’s important to decide which talents and skills your identity is based-upon. I offer some hints on where to start re-claiming your identity.
Real Traction in Job Search
You may know that the last decade of my former career was as a head-hunter. So I would say this line multiple times a day to show new people to the market that they should not spend much of their active job-hunting time applying for jobs where they knew no-one who could introduce them.
“75% of senior roles are secured before anyone even considers writing an advertisement”.
There are far more valuable ways to use your precious time than searching for roles on job-boards. I share one of them here.
Surviving the Rollercoaster - and What’s Next? You did it!
Share your experience with others.
Offer help when someone else gets the news that you received.
Or share this article to prepare everyone in your network for something that is now commonplace in experienced careers.
If you’re like a little more help with designing and reshaping your work-life to be more enjoyable forever - check out the Boost your Joy at Work Quiz.
